Page 1 of 6 Last week we talked about the ways that people don t really talk in rhyming couplets, or with a certain number of syllables per line, and so on. You might think that theater was about the way people really do talk, but it s not usually that, either not exactly. True, the playwright needs an ear for the way people really speak, but if he writes all his dialogue like this: Well I um what did I do last night? Oh yeah, right. That s right. I um got an um taxi back from the office and then let s see I walked into town for a hmm hamburger. Then he may not keep the audience s attention. Perhaps theater might best be described as a kind of halfway house. The magic of the playwright, perhaps, is to know how people speak and then to tidy it up, just enough, so that it holds your attention but still sounds genuine. This week we are going to look at monologues. A monologue is a single person speaking, usually at some length. The monologues we will look at are fairly short. But monologues have been known to go on for 25 or 30 minutes! Here is a speech by Lady Bracknell near the opening of Oscar Wilde s play, The Importance of Being Earnest (1895), available online at ftp://sailor.gutenberg.org/pub/gutenberg/etext97/tiobe10.txt. Well, I must say, Algernon, that I think it is high time that Mr. Bunbury made up his mind whether he was going to live or to die. This shilly-shallying with the question is absurd. Nor do I in any way approve of the modern sympathy with invalids. I consider it morbid. Illness of any kind is hardly a thing to be encouraged in others. Health is the primary duty of life. I am always telling that to your poor uncle, but he never seems to take much notice... as far as any improvement in his ailment goes. I should be much obliged if you would ask Mr. Bunbury, from me, to be kind enough not to have a relapse on Saturday, for I rely on you to arrange my music for me. 1. What things do you immediately know about Lady Bracknell after reading this speech? What impressions do you form of her? 2. Do you think the real Lady Bracknell would talk this way? If not, then how do you think Oscar Wilde has tidied up her speech? 3. Which of the following do you think that Lady Bracknell says next? a. It is my last reception, and one wants something that will encourage conversation, particularly at the end of the season when every one has practically said whatever they had to say, which, in most cases, was probably not much. b. You will do that dear, won t you? c. Good music arranging is such a hard thing to find nowadays almost as hard as finding good hired help. d. I m so glad to know I can count on you. 4. Oscar Wilde is famous for his humor. What examples of it do you see here?
Page 2 of 6 5. Shilly-shallying isn t a real word. What does Lady Bracknell mean by it? 6. Go back and read The Importance of Being Earnest up to the point of Lady Bracknell s speech. Does your impression of her change any? George Bernard Shaw is perhaps most well known for his play Pygmalion, which was turned into the musical My Fair Lady. Here is a speech by Vivie from near the opening of his play Mrs. Warren s Profession (1902), which can be found online at ftp://sailor.gutenberg.org/pub/gutenberg/etext97/wrpro10.txt. Don t suppose anything, Mr. Praed. I hardly know my mother. Since I was a child I have lived in England, at school or at college, or with people paid to take charge of me. I have been boarded out all my life. My mother has lived in Brussels or Vienna and never let me go to her. I only see her when she visits England for a few days. I don t complain: it's been very pleasant; for people have been very good to me; and there has always been plenty of money to make things smooth. But don t imagine I know anything about my mother. 7. What things do you immediately know about Vivie after reading this speech? What impressions do you form of her? 8. Do you think the real Vivie would talk this way? If not, then how do you think that Shaw has tidied up her speech? 9. Read the speech aloud. Does it sound like a real person talking? 10. Which of the following do you think is what Vivie says next? a. I wish I knew her; oh, how I wish I did. But I don t, and that s the simple truth of it. b. And really, I m just as happy that I don t. c. I know far less than you do. d. Oh, let s just get on with things; this is wasting our time. 11. What does it mean to be boarded out? Here is another speech by Vivie a little earlier: Culture! My dear Mr. Praed: do you know what the mathematical tripos means? It means grind, grind, grind for six to eight hours a day at mathematics, and nothing but mathematics. I'm supposed to know something about science; but I know nothing except the mathematics it involves. I can make calculations for engineers, electricians, insurance companies, and so on; but I know next to nothing about engineering or electricity or insurance. I don t even know arithmetic well. 12. What is a tripos? What can you tell about it without looking up the definition? Then look up the definition.
Page 3 of 6 13. What more do you learn about Vivie? 14. Which of the following do you think is what Vivie says next? a. I m all but totally useless when it comes to arithmetic. b. Outside mathematics, lawn-tennis, eating, sleeping, cycling, and walking, I'm a more ignorant barbarian than any woman could possibly be who hadn t gone in for the tripos. c. I ll wager I know far less than you do. d. It s a sad truth, I suppose, but there it is. 15. Go back and read Mrs. Warren s Profession up to the point of Vivie s speeches. Does your impression of her change any? (You ll have to scroll down a ways to find the actual start of the play.) Here is a speech by Ludwig from early in The Grand Duke (1896), by W.S. Gilbert, of Gilbert and Sullivan fame. (It can be found online at ftp://sailor.gutenberg.org/pub/gutenberg/etext97/cpogs10.txt.) If you'll be so obliging as to wait until I've got rid of this feeling of warm oil at the bottom of my throat, I'll tell you all about it. Thank you, my love; it's gone. Well, the piece will be produced upon a scale of unexampled magnificence. It is confidently predicted that my appearance as King Agamemnon, in a Louis Quatorze wig, will mark an epoch in the theatrical annals of Pfennig Halbpfennig. I endeavored to persuade Ernest Dummkopf, our manager, to lend us the classical dresses for our marriage. Think of the effect of a real Athenian wedding procession cavorting through the streets of Speisesaal! Torches burning cymbals banging flutes tootling citharae twanging and a throng of fifty lovely Spartan virgins capering before us, all down the High Street, singing "Eloia! Eloia! Opoponax, Eloia!" 16. What things do you immediately know about Ludwig from reading this speech? 17. Look up the meaning of Pfennig, Halbpfennig, Dummkopf, Speisesaal, all of which are German words. Based on the meaning of the words, what conclusions can you draw about Gilbert s plays? 18. Who is King Agamemnon? What is a Louis Quatorze wig? What are citharae? 19. Do you think the real Ludwig would talk this way? What marks Ludwig s speech apart from the ones we looked at earlier? 20. Which of the following do you think Ludwig says next? a. There s been nothing quite like it in all the history of Western civilization! b. Oh, what I d have given to be part of that procession. c. All quite thrilling stuff, actually.
Page 4 of 6 d. It would have been tremendous! e. Ah, for the grandiose spectacle of it all! 21. Go back and read The Grand Duke from the beginning up to the point of Ludwig s ( Lud s ) speech. Does your impression of him change any? (The Grand Duke is actually the second play in the file, so you will need to scroll down a ways, past The Gondoliers.) Notice all the rhyming dialogue earlier in the play: The Grand Duke is, in fact, an English opera, with the rhyming parts set to music. Let s go back in time a bit, to the late 16 th Century, for William Shakespeare s A Midsummer Night s Dream, available online at ftp://sailor.gutenberg.org/pub/gutenberg/etext97/1ws1710.txt. A Midsummer Night s Dream is a magical play in many different senses of the word, not least for its ability to transcend its unfamiliar Elizabethan English to speak to audiences today. Here is a speech by Egeus, from the opening of the play: Full of vexation come I, with complaint against my child, my daughter Hermia. Stand forth, Demetrius. My noble lord, this man hath my consent to marry her. Stand forth, Lysander. And, my gracious Duke, this man hath bewitch'd the bosom of my child. Thou, thou, Lysander, thou hast given her rhymes, and interchang'd love-tokens with my child; thou hast by moonlight at her window sung, with feigning voice, verses of feigning love, and stol'n the impression of her fantasy with bracelets of thy hair, rings, gawds, conceits, knacks, trifles, nosegays, sweetmeats- messengers of strong prevailment in unhardened youth; with cunning hast thou filch'd my daughter's heart; turn'd her obedience, which is due to me, to stubborn harshness. 22. What things do you immediately know about Egeus from reading this speech? What impressions do you form of him? 23. What are gawds, nosegays and sweetmeats? 24. What do you think Egeus says next? a. She has really been annoying me with all her talk of love for Lysander. b. Oh forsooth, forsooth, that thou wouldst see thy father tremble from before thee for such a sight as this! c. What say you, Hermia? d. And, my gracious Duke, be it so she will not here before your Grace consent to marry with Demetrius, I beg the ancient privilege of Athens: As she is mine I may dispose of her; which shall be either to this gentleman or to her death, according to our law immediately provided in that case. 25. Go and read the first few pages of A Midsummer Night s Dream, past the point of Egeus speech. Do your impressions of him change any?
Page 5 of 6 ANSWERS TO QUESTIONS 1. She is a woman of high society. She has a sharp tongue and a sharper wit. She likes to talk, at length. She takes advantage of, or at least tries to take advantage of, someone named Algernon. 3. a. 4. He is making fun of Lady Bracknell s attitude toward sickness, which seems to be that it s a transgression on the part of the person who s sick and shouldn t be tolerated! More generally, of course, he s making fun of a whole set of social attitudes of his day. 5. indecisiveness 7. She has been raised in considerable luxury. She does not know her mother well. She has a very detached, matter-of-fact approach, suggesting that she considers herself a practical woman. 10. c. 11. To be sent to boarding school: that is, a school where students live on campus, away from home and family. 12. We infer that it must be some kind of a course, perhaps a university course. (In fact the tripos is a final honors examination held at Cambridge University, UK, originally limited to mathematics but now expanded.) 13. We know that Vivie has studied math and that she excelled at it. She is very well educated, but she has a condescending attitude toward her education. 14. b. 16. He s an actor, what might be called a bit of a ham. He has a high opinion of himself. He is getting married. He plans to make a public spectacle of it. 17. penny, half-penny, idiot, dining hall Gilbert and Sullivan intended their plays (or operas) to be lighthearted comedies. Gilbert (who wrote the words) enjoyed doing a lot of plays on words. 18. Agamemnon was the ancient king of Mycenae (or Argos), immortalized in Aeschylus play of the same name, which dates to 458 BC. Louis Quatorze is another name for Louis XIV, king of France. So a Louis Quatorze wig would be a wig in the style that the king wore: huge and frizzy, apparently. Citharae is the plural of cithara, a stringed instrument of ancient Greece that looked a bit like a lyre. 19. He s an actor, so it s not surprising if his speech sounds like something an actor would say it s supposed to! 20. d.
Page 6 of 6 22. He s a father. He has promised his daughter Hermia in marriage to someone named Demetrius. He is annoyed that his daughter has chosen to fall in love with someone named Lysander, who went to great lengths to win her heart. He does not approve of Lysander. 23. Gawd is a variation of gaud, which is a kind of jewelry trinket. (It s where we get the word gaudy.) A nosegay is a bunch of flowers. A sweetmeat is a piece of candied fruit or other piece of candy. 24. d.